Where do you get your songs?

[Max-Paul]

Some of this is moot anyway. I am hearing the CDs are coming up to EOL (end of life). Seems that downloading music files and putting them into some form of MP3 player is the way consumers are going.

[Orville]

you are complaining about something that is a 5 second process to do.  I am ok with their default format, keeps the record companies happy.

Sorry, it isn't no 5 second job if you buy more than 2 or 3 CD full versions.  It takes far too much time to have to process that many files at one time.  So it would save me a ton of time NOT having to convert from MP4, which I CAN NOT use at all, to MP3 which I can use.

 

I have bought a few Christmas CD online versions that contained over 120 songs each, took over a couple of hours to convert EACH CD to MP3 format.   So my complaint is very valid.

[Orville]

The problem is that every time you convert to a lossy format quality is lost.

 If you convert from one lossy format to another lossy format, further sound quality is lost.

Agree 100%.   I guess most here just convert for display only use, I DO NOT, I use mine on personal screen savers I make for use on MY computer, put them in my MP3 player or on an CD in MP3 format, mainly because I can get many more songs on a CD like this for playing on my MP3 car stereo.   So 192kbps works for me all the way around.   I know 320kbps is best for most stereo systems, but I've been using 192kbps for well over 5+ years now and never had any sound quality issues on any of my MP3 players or stereo equipment with that rate.

 

But that's just me I guess.

[caniac]

Sorry, it isn't no 5 second job if you buy more than 2 or 3 CD full versions.  It takes far too much time to have to process that many files at one time.  So it would save me a ton of time NOT having to convert from MP4, which I CAN NOT use at all, to MP3 which I can use.

 

I have bought a few Christmas CD online versions that contained over 120 songs each, took over a couple of hours to convert EACH CD to MP3 format.   So my complaint is very valid.

actually it isn't valid, MP3 does not have the same security to it that MP4 does.  Without that we would have no iTunes, Amazon, et al.  As far as speed, upgrade from Windows95 to a machine running Windows 7, that should solve the couple of hours it takes you to convert.  The bottleneck in what you are doing is also most likely ripping stuff from CD.  And why in the world would you use iTunes to do that when there are other programs that will rip the CD straight to an mp3 format.

 

You are the only person I have heard say they CONVERT A WHOLE CD.  I have yet to find an artist whose work is so good that I will download the entire CD and want to convert it.  I have over 2k worth of tunes in iTunes but only a few dozen worthy of making mp3 to use elsewhere.

 

btw, had you bought the online versions of those CD's from Amazon they would have already been in mp3 format.

Edited April 6, 2013 by caniac

[Orville]

actually it isn't valid, MP3 does not have the same security to it that MP4 does.  Without that we would have no iTunes, Amazon, et al.  As far as speed, upgrade from Windows95 to a machine running Windows 7, that should solve the couple of hours it takes you to convert.  The bottleneck in what you are doing is also most likely ripping stuff from CD.  And why in the world would you use iTunes to do that when there are other programs that will rip the CD straight to an mp3 format.

 

You are the only person I have heard say they CONVERT A WHOLE CD.  I have yet to find an artist whose work is so good that I will download the entire CD and want to convert it.  I have over 2k worth of tunes in iTunes but only a few dozen worthy of making mp3 to use elsewhere.

 

btw, had you bought the online versions of those CD's from Amazon they would have already been in mp3 format.

You misunderstood my entire response.  I DO NOT just use a song or songs for a "display", they are used in other projects {personal for my own use}.   I also AM NOT using Windows 95, but either Windows XP on my Desktop or Windows 7 on my laptop, BOTH require a boatload of time to reconvert many songs from one format to another.

 

I also said I download an entire CD, NOT FROM AN ACTUAL CD, all are in digital download format in MP4, which I have to painstakingly take a long time in the conversion process.  

 

It takes me FAR LESS time to RIP ACTUAL CD's than it does to convert many MP4's to MP3's!

 

Even if I did several songs from many different artists, which I have done, it still takes too darn long to convert when, and if, I could just select MP3 in the first place I would not need to waste my time on conversions!

[caniac]

You misunderstood my entire response.  I DO NOT just use a song or songs for a "display", they are used in other projects {personal for my own use}.   I also AM NOT using Windows 95, but either Windows XP on my Desktop or Windows 7 on my laptop, BOTH require a boatload of time to reconvert many songs from one format to another.

 

I also said I download an entire CD, NOT FROM AN ACTUAL CD, all are in digital download format in MP4, which I have to painstakingly take a long time in the conversion process.  

 

It takes me FAR LESS time to RIP ACTUAL CD's than it does to convert many MP4's to MP3's!

 

Even if I did several songs from many different artists, which I have done, it still takes too darn long to convert when, and if, I could just select MP3 in the first place I would not need to waste my time on conversions!

How do you propose to keep the recording companies happy (MP4 does this, this isn't proprietary iTunes but something that keeps recording companies happy about their investment)?  MP3's will not do that, assuming you went backwards with the format to prevent unlawful copying it would still cause issues with what you are doing.  This is part of copy protection more then "let's see  how to inconvenience Orville".